{"id":657631,"date":"2026-08-25T17:16:56","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T17:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=657631"},"modified":"2026-08-25T17:16:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T17:16:56","slug":"i-hate-cnn-charles-barkley-torches-the-network-while-talking-to-a-cnn-host","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=657631","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I HATE CNN\u2019: Charles Barkley torches the network \u2014 while talking to a CNN host"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

NBA legend Charles Barkley let his feelings about CNN fly during an interview with Michael Smerconish.<\/p>\n

Barkley has never been one to shy away from controversy, and he wasn\u2019t about to start on Monday while speaking to Smerconish on SiriusXM. The sports star mentioned his hatred for CNN to the network\u2019s host as he was explaining why he believes everyone should be an Independent.<\/p>\n

Watch:<\/p>\n\n

\u201cCan you please say half the things now that you said during the commercial break and then we can just call it a day?\u201d the host asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, man. I\u2019m so fed up with the entire political system. Well, you have to be a Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal. Now you got to be a socialist. I mean, it\u2019s silliness out here. I\u2019m an independent person. I got my own brain. When I hear the word \u2018conservative,\u2019 \u2018liberal,\u2019 \u2018socialist,\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Okay, that guy\u2019s out. That girl\u2019s out,’\u201d Barkley responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou heard the callers at the tail end of the last hour. Like that\u2019s not the way we function here. You know that this program exists to spread the independent gospel,\u201d Smerconish chimed in.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, but the problem is people are brainwashed,\u201d Barkley explained. \u201cThey\u2019re like, \u2018I\u2019m I\u2019mma be a Democrat. I\u2019m gonna be a Republican.\u2019 Right. All you have to do is sway 3-5% of the people with something they [are] passionate about or anti-, against, and that\u2019s how you win elections. Like, I\u2019m not- I don\u2019t agree with everything Democrats or Republicans do. Why would I just say I\u2019m a Democrat? Everybody should be an independent. I mean that makes zero sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons I hate CNN now, and I work for CNN-\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs uh, as do I,\u201d Smerconish cleared his throat.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. But I try to support \u2014 be a good man. But I\u2019m sitting there watching the night shows, and I\u2019m like \u2014 they have two Republicans on, two Democrats. They scream at each other for an hour, and I\u2019m like, \u2018That\u2019s just an hour of my life I can\u2019t get back.\u2019 Because the Republican on stage, everything the Democrats do is wrong. The Democrats say, \u2018Everything the Republicans do is wrong.\u2019 And what\u2019s bad about it is, they\u2019re like all successful people,\u201d Barkley pointed out.\u201dLike I want to help poor people,\u00a0 because I tell people this thing ain\u2019t got nothing to do \u2013 see, they make you pick a team based on race, education; man, this is just rich people against poor people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rich people, they\u2019re smarter,\u201d he continued. \u201cThey\u2019re like, \u2018Let\u2019s just make the poor people fight with each other.\u2019 And the poor people, they\u2019ll be like, \u2018You know, we\u2019re actually in the same boat. We want economic opportunity. We live in poor neighborhoods. Our kids go to crap schools. We can\u2019t afford to go to the big schools.\u2019 But they\u2019re like, \u2018No, let\u2019s make them fight with each other.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NBA legend Charles Barkley let his feelings about CNN fly during an interview with Michael Smerconish. Barkley has never been one to shy away from controversy, and he wasn\u2019t about to start on Monday while speaking to Smerconish on SiriusXM. The sports star mentioned his hatred for CNN to the network\u2019s host as he was… Continue reading \u2018I HATE CNN\u2019: Charles Barkley torches the network \u2014 while talking to a CNN host<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":657632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-657631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-border-security","category-immigration","category-immigration-reform","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=657631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/657632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=657631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=657631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=657631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}